Saturday, September 22, 2007

The Future of Climbing Magazines--Not so Bright?

I was standing in the aisle at King Soopers out in Gunbarrel, a popular spot just outside Boulder for climbers who actually work for a living, looking at the latest issue of Climbing and pondering who actually reads these things anymore. I have a big pile of back issues attesting to the fact that I did and actually occasionally wrote an article or two. But I have my doubts that they can survive...

The rot set in for certain around 2000-2002 in an era best described as the Thesenga years, post-media conglomerate buy-out, when it seems as though the mags were pegged to a demographic consisting of young men of average to below average intelligence who had been climbing a very short time--perhaps best summed up as "frat-boy" material. Articles seemed to be written by the same stable of writers taking a similar tone of "Dude, check it out!" in regard to anything and everything. Decent bathroom reading perhaps but nothing you'd want to keep past the sell-by date. And since then the drift continued as the Internet replaced the news function and message boards allowed instant communication, while sites like Mountain Project replaced the need for articles about crags and new routes. Blogs have certainly replaced a major part of climbing magazines reportorial and editorial function.

The Alpinist, which seems to be funded by somebody's slush fund, since its circulation (around 13,000) can't come close to paying for its production values, will stick around as long as there is a Maecenas to foot the bill. Urban Climber seems to be trying to appeal to a crowd that doesn't seem interested in actually reading anything since their layout,etc. actively discourages it. Rock and Ice which has always been the magazine that tries harder has reinvented itself more often than David Bowie. Its current print incarnation has a certain panache which is more than offset by a feeble website that offers next to none of the features that Climbing has piled together. However I would argue that all this media is appealing to an audience that is fast vanishing, perhaps literally as Climbing and Rock and Ice Readers are apparently in their late 30s on average.

Climbing magazines burst into flower in the mid-70s. Titles such as Ascent, Mountain, and Climbing all appealed to a type of reader who took the sport seriously at a time when professionalism hardly existed. In other words, Henry Barber and Yvon Chouinard were obviously much better climbers but not really paid to climb. They had to do something such as make gear or give slide shows or (horrors!) become an industry rep in order to pay the bills. A regular climber could in some sense relate to them and vice versa so that fact, combined with a respect for the power of writing produced a series of classic articles, indeed classic anthologies based upon those. There may have been something to do with the style of climbing that forced climbers to be more introspective, more aware of the mix of emotions, environments, etc. that aid in good writing.

It is tempting to argue that sport climbing eroded that sense of adventure and self-exploration that fueled the "Golden Age" of climbing magazine writing but I think it was also a growing movement towards commercializing the sport that undermined the very media outlets used to promote that commercial aspect. This trend appeared in every category of climbing from alpinism to bouldering as companies attempted to build brand awareness and expand and magazines attempted to attract mainstream advertisers. I remember well seeing the first car ad in a climbing magazine, and there was the Reebok "climbing" shoe...

Well whatever was the case, it has become obvious that while climbing media have become in a sense more sophisticated, their appeal to the climbing public has waned. Both Climbing and Rock and Ice are down seriously in circulation and advertising from their circa 2000 numbers. Climbing's relocation to Boulder, while putting it in touch with what's happening in Boulder (which is not necessarily the center of the climbing universe) does not appear to have broadened its appeal. And overall I sense that while the media types have spent a lot of time leveraging their brands, etc. their "product" has lost its luster and its actually great era is long past. Nothing I have seen in the past five years has given me a different impression. If I find the time I will present some examples of articles that set the standard.

2 comments:

it's interesting, your comments on introspection as an element to enrich a piece and help others relate on a deeper level than mere recipients of the evening news...

when i had been writing, i always felt embarassed and narcissistic because all of my stories were completely introspective and self-centered. the stories meant a lot to me, but i was worried that they would be nothing more that obnoxious to others... maybe if i ever proof-read them, it would have helped sugar the distaste a bit?

regardless, i'd be interested in hearing about any good reads from the golden age. i've always enjoyed john long's climbing mag. stories much more than the average, or even the above-average. however, i never got a taste of what you mention, above.